Posts Tagged ‘88mm’

Well I have finally finished the 88mm Flak Gun t shirt that I mentioned in the last post. I was very busy last week with multiple orders coming in from Australia and France. I had my favorite French tank lover, Jean-Luc, order 6 tee’s from me. I think he has ordered everything from the Stuka Ju-87 to the Jagdpanther tee and now he can get the 88mm Flak Gun tee. This new design is of course the “Dreaded 88” that the British so named during the Afika campaign. The design is a basic one and a good first entry into the stable of other German World War II weapons.

More about the “Dreaded 88” artillery flak gun:

The German forces employed the 88 extensively in World War II, not only in its original role as an anti-aircraft gun, where it performed well, but also as an anti-tank gun.

The German Condor Legion made extensive use of the FlaK 88 in the Spanish Civil War, where its usefulness as an anti-tank weapon and a general artillery piece exceeded its role as an anti-aircraft weapon. Erwin Rommel also used the 88 as an anti-tank weapon, first in France and later in North Africa. His timely use of the gun to blunt the British counterattack at Arras ended any hope of a breakout from the blitzkrieg encirclement of May 1940. In Libya and Egypt, he lured British tanks into traps by baiting them with apparently retreating panzers. When the British pursued, concealed 88s picked them off at ranges far beyond those of the 2-pdr and 6-pdr guns of the British tanks. The British 8th Army eventually learned to coordinate their heavy artillery with their ground advances, destroying the relatively immobile 88s in their emplacements once they revealed their positions.

The weapon saw continuous use on the Soviet Front. The appearance of the outstanding T-34 shocked the German tank crews, whose 37 mm and 50 mm tank guns could only penetrate the Soviet tank’s armour at extremely close range.

The less open terrain in Italy and Northern France was less suitable for the 88. The success of the 88 caused the Allies to take steps to defend against it in new tank design. Stopgap measures included adding more armour, or even using sandbags, to try to defeat the 88’s projectiles. The Germans took advantage of this effective design in the armament of vehicles such as the Tiger tank and the Elefant tank destroyer (with an 88 mm Pak 43/2 anti-tank gun).